Centre Européen
de Recherche et d'Enseignement
des Géosciences de l'Environnement
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Surface processes, tectonics and geodynamics

Understanding how, when and why the Earth's topography changed is a key issue to quantify the relationships between tectonic and climate with regards to future environmental changes. The time and space scales of such complex systems are large and various (s to Ga; cm to ~1000 km). Denudation processes, for instance, can be the results of tectonic and climate at short (earthquake, storms) and long timescales (orogeneses), and from local (fault sections) to continental scales. Therefore we aim at studying all kind of geological sites and at dating as much as possible Quaternary (cosmogenic nuclides, OSL) and older (40Ar-39Ar on K-enriched manganese oxides) objects. Among our research projects, the following list shows some recent studies:

  • Geological and geomorphological evolution of denudation surfaces like intertropical lateritic palaeo-surfaces
  • Incision, denudation and burying rates linked to relief evolution affected by active faults
  • Natural hazard quantification: earthquake dating and fault activity, collapsing, extreme events (paleo-tsunamis)